The Struggle Over Racial Common Sense: Analyzing the Formation of Racial Interests

• In Event: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education: Power and Politics

Abstract

The objective of this theoretical paper is to offer a supplement to racial interest scholarship in Critical Race Theory (CRT) by introducing a racial interest formation framework. Two major CRT concepts that focus on racial interests are Bell’s (1980) interest convergence and Guinier’s (2004) interest divergence. While these concepts have offered important insights, there remains a need for an account of how racial interests are formed and how interest formation is an important site of struggle. The paper will utilize the framework to analyze the HarvardNotFair website to show how Asian American racial interests around race-conscious admissions are actively being reworked and to illustrate the importance of the racial formation process as a site of struggle and intervention.

Author

• Jon Syed Iftikar, Indiana State University